282 Dr A. Thomson on the Moa Caves of New Zealand. 



found in any of these islands, neither have the inhabitants 

 any tradition about the animal ; but the natives of the Poly- 

 nesian islands apply the term Moa to the domestic fowl. Is 

 this not a kind of proof that an animal resembling the New 

 Zealand Moa had lived at one time in these islands ; other- 

 wise, how is it to be accounted for that the same race of 

 men should in one set of islands call a domestic fowl a Moa, 

 and in another island confine the term Moa to the large 

 struthious order of birds known to naturalists as the Dinor- 

 nis ? This is an important point in the history of the New 

 Zealand Moa. I shall, therefore, endeavour to explain it. 



There is strong evidence, drawn from a similarity in lan- 

 guage, customs, physical appearance, and character, that the 

 true Polynesian race which now people the numerous islands 

 in the Pacific and New Zealand are of Malay origin, and 

 that originally the present inhabitants of all these islands 

 come from Malacca and Sumatra ; and on referring to the 

 best dictionary of the Malay language,* I find the word mud\ 

 is a species of pheasant ; that me mud means to make the 

 voice peculiar to that bird ; and I dngdn me mud angkau de 

 sini signifies " do not thou be moaning here." It is, there- 

 fore, obvious that before the Polynesians migrated from their 

 original country, they were acquainted with a bird which 

 they called the Mud. On their arrival in their canoes at 

 some of the Polynesian islands which they now inhabit, 

 they probably discovered the domestic fowl of the islands 

 in a wild state, in the woods (for this animal was found 

 in a domestic state in all the tropical Polynesian islands, 

 where they were first discovered by Europeans), they had to 

 give the animal a name ; and being acquainted with two 

 words in their own language to select from, mud smdrndnuk, 

 — the first being applied to a species of pheasant in their 

 native land, the latter being the term in the Eastern islands 

 (through which they had probably passed) for a bird or fowl. J 

 They could not properly apply the words dyam and hdyam, 

 which are the Malay words for domestic fowl, to an animal 

 which was running about wild in the woods ; and therefore 



* Dictionary of the Malayan Language, by W. Marsden, F.R.S. Lond., 1812. 

 t U is sounded oo, as in moon, sloop, fool. The a, as in want, ball, call. 

 | Marsden 's Dictionary of the Malayan Language. 



